


i wake up lonely

by finkpishnets



Category: Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-28 13:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/pseuds/finkpishnets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s been running on empty for days, weeks, forever, and he’s so far past the point of exhaustion that he can’t quite believe he’s really standing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wake up lonely

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt “exhaustion”. Set post-novel. Warning for mentions of suicide (obviously).

It’s not intentional – Clay doesn’t even remember the first time they spoke after… _after_ – but somehow Tony’s become something like his closest friend. There are only thirteen people that know about the tapes, but to Clay it feels like the whole world is watching and judging; he can’t look the others in the eye anymore, though he almost punches Marcus at one point, only Tony’s arms appearing from nowhere holding him back. He goes to school and he goes home again, and then, sometimes, he goes over to Tony’s and watches him work on the car, not talking about much of anything, even as his brain keeps playing that night over and over, a horror story stuck on repetitive loop.

He’s never liked horror stories at the best of times. That’s another thing Hannah never found out.

Tony doesn’t ever ask him how he’s doing, just turns up the radio on his newly installed CD player – another quiet change – and sings along under his breath, occasionally going inside and coming back with cans of Coke and snacks his mom’s made, his hands a little less covered in grease.

It’s not what Clay would call the friendship of the century, but it’s still more real than anything he’s had before.

 

+

 

You can’t see the stars this close to town, not really, but with the roof open and the seats reclined they can pretend.

“I hate her,” Clay whispers, the words little more than shapes curling around his lips, but Tony nods anyway.

“I know,” he says. “I do, too, sometimes.”

The clock on the dash blinks three a.m. and they ignore it. Neither of them can sleep these days, anyhow.

 

+

 

It’s been longer for Tony, he knows. All those extra nights spent trying to make sense of things alone whilst Clay slept, blissfully unaware of the anvil Hannah was about to posthumously bring down across his shoulders. There are marks scratched into the garage wall, little dents in the wood that could have been caused by anything, but Clay sees the way Tony deliberately keeps his gaze anywhere else, and knows undoubtedly that they’re a calendar of days since – since Hannah, since the tapes, since the girl with the bike dragged Tony into something he should never have been dragged into.

Clay knows she said he didn’t belong on the list, that his story was more an explanation, but that doesn’t lessen the guilt, not even a little. He wonders if Hannah knew that, too, and if she even cared by the end. He wonders if she stopped to think about how Tony was going to feel, if she’d realized that she was leaving another broken soul in her wake or if she was too far gone to even consider it. He still loves her, almost as much as he hates her now, maybe, so he can’t fault her for it.

Maybe Tony’s part in all this was as inevitable as the rest of theirs. Still, the scratches in the wood say more for his state of mind than anything else, and Clay can relate; he’s been running on empty for days, weeks, forever, and he’s so far past the point of exhaustion that he can’t quite believe he’s really standing.

He doesn’t know how Tony is.

 

+

 

School’s pretty much hell now, and Clay would skip if that wouldn’t just raise more questions from his parents. His mom has already questioned his sleeping habits, asking if he wants to go to the doctor and see about pills, and Clay doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it’s not insomnia but something so much worse. Besides, pills are the last things he wants to touch, even if they’re just to help him sleep.

Another thing he can’t tell his mom.

“I can’t even take aspirin,” Tony says when Clay brings it up, fingers tracing over the insides of the engine like he’s trying to find the problem by touch alone. He’s been working on the car every day for the last two weeks, and Clay’s starting to wonder if there’s a problem at all, or if it’s just something to keep Tony’s mind occupied.

“We should go see a movie tonight,” Clay says. “They’re doing late night showings of old classics. I don’t know. It’s better than staring at a ceiling.”

Tony nods, still not catching his eye. “Yeah,” he says, then: “Didn’t she used to work there?”

“No,” Clay says, his mouth suddenly dry. He reaches for the soda Tony’s mom had brought him. “No, it’s at the theatre by the mall. Not here. Not…not where I work.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, and he finally looks up enough for Clay to see the streak of grease across his cheek. “Okay.”

 

+

 

Clay’s dad asks if he’s seeing someone, raises an eyebrow suggestively every time a girl calls the house, and Clay just sighs and shakes his head and answers questions about homework or guys or whatever irrelevant conversation they’ve phoned to have. The only one he _talks_ to is Skye, and that’s nice, that’s something. She’s sharp as a knife and funny to boot, and she never asks things he can only answer with a lie, which makes a change these days.

He hopes he’s helping her.

He hopes she doesn’t need it.

His mom suggests he invites her to dinner, and he can’t think of a good reason why not so he arranges it and then, on a whim, asks Tony too. Tony looks at him with wide, startled eyes, and then nods, saying he’ll check with his folks and should he bring anything?

Clay’s parents look so relieved to see him with friends that they don’t even interrogate Skye as much as he’d feared, just asking about her classes and her hobbies and her part time job, and Clay thinks they approve of her which is nice even if she’ll never be his girlfriend. Maybe, once upon a time, she could have been, but not now.

Tony brings flowers for his mom and talks about football with his dad even though Clay knows he doesn’t care one whit about it, and is the epitome of polite. Clay can see the circles under his eyes though, and he knows he can’t look much better. Later, after Skye’s gone home to bed, they’ll get into Tony’s car and drive for hours, until they need to fill up with gas and the sun’s peeking over the horizon, and then they’ll come back and Tony will wait until Clay’s safely snuck back into the house before he heads home himself.

Clay’s spent more time with Tony over the last few weeks than he’s spent with anyone else in _years_ , and he knows part of it’s comfort and part of it’s a morbid sort of companionship, but they also get along better than he’d ever have imagined. Sometimes they’ll spend hours arguing about music and literature and movies before they remember, and those brief breaks are what Clay lives for these days. He’s pretty sure it’s the same for Tony.

 

+

 

He’s so far past exhausted, and he’s tried everything that’s not medication because there are some things he can’t do, he really can’t, not yet. Tony’s started talking in nothing but slurred syllables, and he looks thinner than Clay can ever remember seeing him. It’s a new sort of terrifying, another one to add to the ever growing list, and Clay wishes there was someone he could talk to about this, someone who’d know what to say and do to make everything right, but he’s stopped trusting ninety-nine percent of people without even realizing it, so that’s out of the question.

Clay’s almost talked himself into going to see a doctor when Tony doesn’t show up to school. There’s a moment of brief, shattering dread before he thinks to dig his cell phone out of his bag and punch in the third number on his speed dial, ignoring the odd looks from the other kids filling the hallway.

He’s embarrassed to find himself close to tears by the time Tony answers.

“Hey,” he says, and he sounds dreadful. “I’m throwing up so I stayed at home. I’m sorry, Clay.” He means it too, trying to comfort him even whilst his own voice is choked and raw, and _shit_ , when did they become this fucked up?

Oh, that’s right.

“I’m coming over,” Clay says, shoving his things in his locker. Tony doesn’t protest and Clay doesn’t expect him to.

It takes him ten minutes to find a bus going the right direction, and then another twenty before he’s outside Tony’s house, his hands curled into fists inside his pockets where they won’t stop shaking. He’s never skipped school like this before, but he doesn’t regret it, not even for a second.

Tony opens the door before he even rings the bell. He looks awful, his skin pallid and his t-shirt hanging off his shoulders so his collarbones are visible over the neckline, sharp in a way they shouldn’t be.

“Hi,” he says, and then turns and runs up the stairs. Clay follows slowly, trying not to listen too closely to the sound of Tony gagging in the bathroom, and instead slips into his room and sits on his bed, taking it in. For all the times he’s been over here, he’s never seen Tony’s bedroom, and it feels weird to be sitting here now, after everything.

Tony joins him eventually, looking dead on his feet, but he doesn’t sit down, just stands with his arms folded across his chest staring at his bed like he doesn’t recognize it. Clay knows that feelings. He’s not even really sure what he’s doing when he reaches up and slips his fingers through Tony’s, tugging him down until they’re side by side; Tony doesn’t look at him but he doesn’t object either, just folds into himself a little more, and Clay’s heart aches at the sight of him.

“This is ridiculous,” he says, and Tony laughs under his breath humorlessly.

“Yep.”

“Come on,” Clay says, kicking off his shoes and leaning back until his head’s resting on a pillow that smells vaguely of washing powder, proof that it’s not been used in a long time; Tony watches him from under his eyelashes and eventually follows suit, moving carefully. There are inches between them, and Clay sighs, rolling over until he can tangle their legs together and rest his arm across Tony’s waist, and there’s a beat before Tony’s fingers come up and tangle in the back of Clay’s t-shirt, clinging tightly. Clay lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“What now?” Tony asks, voice barely above a whisper, and Clay can feel it against his cheek. It’s a loaded question with so many possible answers, some Clay knows and some he’s still figuring out, but for now he holds on tight and doesn’t think about school or Skye or the tapes or the girl with the bike who started all this or maybe just ended it. He watches Tony’s eyelids droop, feels his muscles begin to relax beneath his fingertips, and lets his own do the same.

“Now,” he says, “we sleep.”

Amazingly, they do.


End file.
